That's the truth. See, after peeling the layers back and peeling the layers back and peeling them back again, I've discovered that the me underneath is afraid. I thought I had conquered a lot of it, and I'm still trying to decide if this fear that I'm feeling is new fear that I haven't faced yet or if Satan has found a new way to attack me with old fears.
I can't imagine there's much more of me left to expose, honestly. Funny thing is, the more I expose, the fatter I get - and I mean that physically and truthfully. Since I started digging into my fears and addictions, I started gaining weight. I'm about fifty-five pounds up, and trying hard to put the brakes on it. But for some reason I'm having a really tough time putting down my fork to pray.
For several days now I've woken up with an icky feeling - like I was angry or resentful toward people. I've considered from where this might be stemming, and this morning I decided I needed to tackle the issue.
I looked up resentment in the back of my Bible - nothing. So my next idea was to look up "scripture about resentment" on Google. I started finding scripture and blogs about overcoming resentment, and frankly, it made me a little resentful . . .
Often I run across scripture that tells me what I should or shouldn't do, but there's not "how to". Much of what I read basically gave scripture on what God says about anger and resentment, but I felt like it wasn't practical. I kind of wanted to know what to DO about it. Not "do not allow your anger to rule you" or "Get rid of your resentment." (Ephesians 4:31 & James 1:19-20) That's not helpful to me.
As I read, however, I started to pray that God would help me to hear his message, and it was like a light switch was flipped. I realized that God was speaking to me through the Word, the words of the people blogging, and through His Holy Spirit. This morning I vowed to follow through on some of these suggestions. Here is what I found on how to conquer fear and resentment:
- Forgive. This is much easier to say than do, but even just asking God to help you forgive the person helps. If the person who has wronged you as apologized, PLEASE accept the apology and consider verbally forgiving him or her.
- Serve/Give. Using your time and/or money to serve others has several benefits. First off, we are all rewarded for giving with a loving heart. Second, it puts our minds on others and takes them off ourselves. It also makes us humble.
- Express anger in a way that is productive. (Ephesians 4:26-27)
- Don't Sleep on it. Pray that God would allow you to forgive and move on.
- Love - even your enemies. (Matthew 5:44) Pray long and hard about this one - God does answer those prayers, but you have to really WANT it to happen. This is the hardest one for me.
- Do good for the person who has wronged you. It confuses them and will get their attention. It may be just what you need to be a good witness. (Romans 12:17-21)
- Support others who need support. This will focus your attention on someone other than yourself. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11)
I've been on an antidepressant for a year, and I'm thankful that God provided the medication to help me to get through the dark time of my life without cutting my own life short. About three weeks ago, my doctor and I began tapering the meds to wean me off. I'm feeling it. It's like I've been drinking soft water for a year, and now we are slowly adding unsoftened tap water or spring water back into my life. Things are clearer. I'm feeling a little harder. It's unfun.
God promises to clear out all of the garbage. He promises to carry us through and take away that resentment if we let him. It's a choice we have to make. I spent years carrying around resentment that I had no business carrying around, and apparently I'm still working through some of it. I will forever be a work in progress, but as I recently told my daughter last night - if you can look back at yourself a year ago and see a positive difference between then and now, then you're heading in the right direction.
Recently a good friend of mine told me that the opposite of fear is faith. Finding faith to conquer that fear is hard, but if I plan on moving forward I need to muster it up, take up the whole armor of God, and fight. (Ephesians 6:12-17)
God promises to clear out all of the garbage. He promises to carry us through and take away that resentment if we let him. It's a choice we have to make. I spent years carrying around resentment that I had no business carrying around, and apparently I'm still working through some of it. I will forever be a work in progress, but as I recently told my daughter last night - if you can look back at yourself a year ago and see a positive difference between then and now, then you're heading in the right direction.
Recently a good friend of mine told me that the opposite of fear is faith. Finding faith to conquer that fear is hard, but if I plan on moving forward I need to muster it up, take up the whole armor of God, and fight. (Ephesians 6:12-17)
